Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Tasmania, Days 6-7

March 13, 2013

Tasmania has been a
whirlwind week. The crazy wild
wind today is only a fraction of the wild weather this island state can get –
signs blowing over, water flying out of the fountain, trees bending and leaves
swirling like dervishes. And of
course on and off rain, because we’re just a small island in the midst of the
Tasman Sea, buffeted by the weather.

Yesterday we went out to
Bruny Island, a two-island island to the east of Hobart. Actually, Bruny is one long island shaped
almost like a figure 8 – large upper island, skinny isthmus, then large lower
island. We took the ferry from a
town south of Hobart, drove all over Bruny (both North Bruny and South Bruny),
and stopped at the penguin rookery.
This is basically a penguin colony site, but called a rookery. Wandered along the boardwalks and
looked into the burrows, but couldn’t find nary a penguin. We did find some penguin footprints
down on the beach, so the little guys are around – but either they were all out
fishing, or inside their burrows sleeping and moulting. None of them came out to say hello,
despite our looking and calling (and pretending we could make penguin-like
sounds).

But it was a beautiful
beach with headlands on both sides, and

seemed to have a very low slope, so
that there was quite a distance between the high-tide mark and where the water
was when we were there (low tide).

We drove down to South
Bruny, home of the famous Penguin Café – with penguins signs, penguin door,
penguins on the menu (not to eat, silly – pictures of penguins), and penguin
chotchkes all over. Just silly and
fun stuff, and penguin kitsch. I
think this is Bruny Island humor.
Or maybe Tassie humor. But
it was funny and unique, and we had a nice lunch there.

Once we saw the sign for a
chocolate factory, we had to stop.
The chocolate was pretty good (we shared a small chocolate cat – at
least, we think it was a cat, it was hard to tell) – but the penguin cutout was
a must. Again, just because it was
so silly.

The most exciting animal
spotting of the day was on the ferry on the way back – there was a fin or
flipper sticking up – as we approached, we realized in was a seal flipper. Seals lie on their side or back and
raise a flipper or two up in the air, to cool off. This seal must have been quite toasty, because he didn’t
move, just stayed in one spot with a flipper raised, waving at us as we went
by.

Hobart has been an
interesting place to visit –

there seems to be quite a bit of public art. I really liked these sculptures in the
Salamanca Square area – just quick metal sketches of people going about their
everyday tasks: rushing to work, waiting for a bus, walking a child to school,
playing a guitar. Almost like
cutouts, where someone could put their face in the sculpture and take a photo –
quick gesture drawings of every man and every woman.

North Hobart had a “pavement
project” – artists and school children made ceramic objects and put them
together in mosaic that were embedded in the sidewalks. I’m not sure if there was a theme, but
it was definitely a fun project.
Fun to see, too.My favorite, though, was a
small alley with tromp l’oeil murals – check out the photos, and try to figure
out what is a real object and what is painted!

And there are the
lovely Georgian, Edwardian, Victorian houses with addresses like Arthur
Circus and Macquarie Street. One house was actually dated 1840 - and
it was for sale! Can you imagine living in a house that is 170+ years
old? Wow!

There are quirky things,
like the series of barge restaurants along the waterfront. We ate at Mako, which was very good –
Richard had fish and chips, I had fried shrimp and chips. Fresh and tasty!

2 comments:

:D I never made it around to Bruny Island and North Hobart when I was there. The murals are amazing! Did you get to walk through Elizabeth Lane in Hobart? They had little inscriptions at the bottom of these granite slabs along the street and they were quite fun to read.